The Would-Be Witch

by Boucher, Rita

  He turned and began to walk. Just ahead, a glimmer of light split the darkness.

  As the lambent shimmer became a bright splendor, Miranda felt a compulsion to follow him, a longing unlike any she had ever known. There was not much time. “Lord Pelton, please, can you tell me if I will ever have Merlin’s Gift?” she asked. “You see beyond the Veil. Can you tell me if I will ever be a witch?”

  Lord Pelton faced her once more. “You are no witch, foolish g-girl,” he chided, his tone stern but gentle. “But you have received the most valuable g-g-gifts. You j-j-just are not aware of them.”

  The radiance grew larger, moving to embrace Lord Pelton’s shade. As the pain of his answer engulfed her, Miranda took another step forward, knowing that just a few more footfalls would mean the end of disappointment, the end of sorrow. Ahead, she could see a legion of shadows and somehow she knew that her father waited among them.

  “Miranda!”

  She heard her name echoing behind her.

  “Miranda!”

  Adam was calling her.

  Lord Pelton looked over his shoulder and smiled. “It is not yet your time,” he said, vanishing into the luminous splendor before him as Miranda felt herself slipping into darkness.

  Chapter 9

  Miranda blinked like a just-wakened sleeper. “Adam?” she asked, tears slipping unheeded down her cheeks.

  “I am right here, Miranda.” Adam rubbed her fingers. Folding her palms within his own, he breathed upon her hands, trying to bring warmth to the chilled extremities. “Ropwell, bring me some of that wine, if you’ve not drunk it all,” he demanded, watching as her pupils began to lose their dilated look. He loosened his hold on her momentarily to pull off his jacket and drape it around her shoulders.

  Lord Ropwell responded with alacrity. “Wouldn’t want to lose our guide to the hereafter, would we?” he said with false heartiness.

  Squatting beside her, Adam put the glass to her lips, holding her shoulder to keep her steady. “Drink slowly,” he told her and breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Color was returning to her cheeks and the disturbing empty gaze was gone. Instead he saw a profound sadness. He wanted to question her, but now was not the time.

  “Miss Wilton, about the jewels-”

  Adam silenced him with a scowl. “Leave her be, Ropwell,” he commanded coldly.

  “What right do you have to speak for her, Brand? You ought to be at Gutmacher’s unmasking the fraud. I have a substantial sum bet in your favor.”

  “I am flattered by your confidence,” Adam said, not bothering to mask his sarcasm.

  “Does it bother you so much?” Ropwell asked with a sneer. “Now that it appears that the exception has been found to your prosaic rules? Pray, how do you explain what just happened here?”

  “There are always alternatives. Many things are not what they appear to be,” Adam said, not at all convinced himself. Something had occurred, something unusual, and though he had not experienced a change of heart, the idea that there might be possibilities beyond his ken filled him with sudden doubt and unreasoning fear. If her truths were within the realms of reality, she had taken a terrible risk. The mere thought of her making the attempt again for Ropwell’s greed was beyond bearing. “At present, though, I think that Miss Wilton’s well-being is paramount.”

  “So it is,” Ropwell said. “If I may call upon you tomorrow, Miss Wilton?”

  Adam was about to tell Ropwell that he might go to the devil first, but Lady Enderby spoke before him.

  “I am sure that the Wodesbys would be delighted,” Lady Enderby declared.

  With a satisfied nod, Lord Ropwell made his farewells.

  “Mama will not receive him,” Miranda said weakly.

  “Of course she will, Miranda,” Lady Enderby said smugly. “His bloodlines are unexceptionable, and he is quite eligible, especially if you find those baubles for him. The Ropwell jewels are worth a veritable king’s ransom. Marriage would not be a high price to pay for their recovery.”

  “I see,” Miranda said, taking a restoring breath. Her veins felt as if they had been filled with iced water, but anger was warming her rapidly. “And since I am at my last prayers, Ropwell might well be the best that an aging spinster can hope for. I would be addressed as ‘your ladyship,’ after all,” she said steadily.

  “I knew you had a head on your shoulders, gel,” Lady Enderby said approvingly.

  Miranda’s expressionless face would have done credit to a card sharp and her cool, practical tone was unnerving. Would she actually consider a man like Ropwell? Adam wondered. Rumors were rife that Ropwell had assisted his lady in her fatal headlong tumble down the stairs. “Ropwell’s stinking repute would have the fishwives in Billingsgate holding their noses. You would do better to rely on that fellow in the country, Miss Wilton, the man of your dreams.”

  The man of your dreams . . . No worse phrase could have been chosen. “My dreams are no business of yours, Lord Brand!” she snapped, pain slicing through her. She knew that he spoke out of honest concern, but the fact that he could so easily consign her to the arms of an unknown cut her to the core. It was no fault of Adam’s that he haunted her nights and the revelation of heart that she had confronted on her journey through the dark borderland of the Veil was still too new, too raw to cope with. “I am sorry, milord,” she said, avoiding his gaze. “Once again I must plead weariness, a poor excuse for rudeness, but it has been a rather eventful evening.”

  “I find it something of a wonder that you can speak at all,” Adam said, recalling all that she had been through in the course of the night. But now, the strain seemed to be taking its toll, from the quiver of her shoulders to the decidedly clammy feel of her hands. She looked terribly brittle, as if she might shatter at a touch. Adam seized upon exhaustion as an explanation for her momentary lapse into the semi-conscious. “Let us get you home, Miranda,” he said helping her to her feet.

  The gentle tone of his voice was almost her undoing. She wanted to crumble into his arms, to be held and savor every sensation from the clean masculine scent of him to the roughness of his late night stubble. But pity was not what she longed for and that appeared to be the extent of what he was offering. Somehow she forced herself to stand. Mechanically, she set one foot before the other until, at the end of an eternity, they reached the carriage.

  As Adam helped lift her into her seat, Thorpe rose swiftly from the cushions and regarded him with a distinct look of feline disapproval. “She is falling off of her feet,” Adam growled and then shook his head in disbelief. He was justifying himself to a cat.

  Lady Enderby settled herself in and the carriage clattered off. “A ghost,” she prattled, her jowls quivering with excitement. “Even you must credit it, Lord Brand.”

  “Drafts,” Adam hedged, “you could fly a kite in the winds that go through some of these old houses,”

  “There is not so much as a breeze in the air tonight,” Lady Enderby countered. “And what of Lady Pelton? She felt her late husband’s touch.”

  “She felt what she wished to feel,” Adam replied, eying Miranda anxiously. Her face was still unnaturally blanched and despite the jarring, jolting motion of the vehicle, she appeared to be slipping into sleep.

  “Meowrrrr!” came the alarmed cry.

  “Was I nodding off?” Miranda asked, forcing herself to sit bolt upright. There was a peculiar comfort in his jacket, the scent of him. Warmth enfolded her, as if she were in his arms again, lulling her, making her vulnerable to the fatal seduction of sleep. “Do not let me drowse,” she begged them. But Adam merely smiled, unaware of the danger.

  “I should say not; considering how the night is in its infancy,” Adam said, with a tender smile. She looked oddly appealing, tousled and half-asleep and he allowed himself to imagine that face against a pillow, just touched by the dawn. “Another hour and the roosters will be rousing themselves. Sleep if you want to. We are but a few streets from your home and I’ll wake you when we arrive.”

 
“You do not understand,” she whispered, desperately fighting the tide of drowsiness. She dared not sleep, not till the cock’s crow. Her eyes blinked wide, but slowly the lids began to drift closed. “I fear that you may not be able to wake me.”

  Thorpe yowled again, reinforcing the warning this time with a slash of his claws.

  “Nasty creature!” Lady Enderby said, shrinking back.

  Adam hauled Thorpe away by the scruff of his neck. “Are you alright, Miranda?” he asked.

  “It is no more than a light scratch, I assure you,” Miranda said, bending to clutch her ankle as the pain momentarily chased away sleep. “Leave him go, Adam. He has achieved his purpose and will do no more harm.”

  “And what purpose is that?” Adam asked, knowing full well that the Wodesby answer he might hear would not be to his liking.

  “And keep hold of that vile beast, Lord Brand!” Lady Enderby implored as the carriage slowed. “Or better still, I shall open the window and you may throw it out.”

  “Harm a whisker on Thorpe’s head and you will answer to me,” Miranda said, casting a black look. Lady Enderby cowered in the corner and Miranda realized that Adam was right. She would forever be a witch in the eyes of the ton.

  “We are nearly at the door of Wodesby House,” Adam informed her drily. “If you would prefer, Lady Enderby, I will escort both the cat and Miss Wilton.”

  “B. . . b . . . but, I really ought to speak to Adrienne and explain—" Lady Enderby began.

  “I will make any necessary explanations to Lady Wodesby,” Adam offered. “You need not wait here.”

  “W. . . would you, Lord Brand?” Lady Enderby said, unable to conceal her relief. “I must confess that I am a trifle overset.”

  As soon as Adam, Miranda and Thorpe had alighted, Lady Enderby’s carriage clattered off at breakneck pace. The cat ran to the door and started to yowl.

  “She did not even wait . . . until we crossed the threshold,” Miranda said. “And she has the gall to prate . . . about manners.”

  “She fears you now, Miranda,” Adam said, putting his arm around her waist. Her hair brushed against his cheek as she leaned against him for support. Slowly, he helped her up the marble stairs to the great oak door. “You have assumed the status of a witch, at least in her eyes. Is that not what you wanted?”

  She pulled her elbow from his grasp. “I am no witch, damn you!” A sob caught in her throat. “And now I know that I never shall . . . be one. Tonight when Pelton’s ghost . . . put in an appearance, I thought that I might . . .” She faltered and Adam reached out to keep her from falling.

  Dominick opened the entrance, his impassive expression fading at the scene before him. He saw Adam reaching for Miranda, her face tearful, her skirt disheveled and bloody. The Gypsy’s knife opened with a soft snick, moonlight shining silver upon thin steel.

  “You can cut my throat later, if you want to,” Adam told him, adding a Romany curse for good measure. “But now, your mistress needs help. That bloody tiger of Lady Wodesby’s clawed her in the leg and between the tabby, Lady Enderby and the ghost, she’s halfway to a haunt herself. If you don’t believe me, ask the cat.” He swept Miranda up, carrying her into the entry. Thorpe followed, caterwauling at a panicked pace.

  Miranda moaned softly as her face skimmed against his stiffly starched linen. Just the same, she felt warm and safe, enfolded by his strength. If it was destined to end so, then she would not fight the weariness anymore. There were worse ways to die than to drift away in his arms.

  “By the Merlin!” The thunderous oath echoed down the stair. “A man cannot even get his coat off in this place before his ears are assaulted. Calm yourself you blasted feline, and address me without the benefit of frantic drama if you wish to be understood.”

  Adam looked up to see a man in a caped greatcoat rapidly descending the stair. Dressed entirely in black, the stranger seemed to be cut from the fabric of the night itself. His hair was dark as Newcastle coal, relieved only by a streak of white that ran through the center of his untidy Brutus. An enormous mastiff with fur the shade of a moonless midnight followed silently in his wake. Halting at the landing to regard the scene below with blazing yellow canine eyes, the beast uttered a single deep howl.

  “You heard Angel, Dominick,” the stranger said, his emerald eyes widening in alarm. “Get Tante Reina and quickly. Perhaps she will have some means of helping stave off sleep.”

  Dominick hastened to obey.

  “Put my sister on her feet, sir. Immediately!” the stranger demanded, hurrying to Adam’s side.

  “You are her brother, Damien, I take it,” Adam said, a sinking feeling in his gut. So much for his hopes that Wodesby might exert a steadying influence. Another Bedlamite, with a talking dog to boot. “I am Adam Chapbrook, Lord Brand. This is not what it might appear, Lord Wodesby.”

  “Few things are what they seem to be,” Damien commented, as he hurried to Adam’s side. “Now put her down, if you please.”

  “Are you mad, man?” Adam asked. “Can’t you see that she’s exhausted?”

  “Explanations later,” Damien said. “Set her on her feet. We must keep her awake or we may lose her.”

  “He is right, Adam,” Miranda murmured. “If I sleep now, I may sleep forever.”

  As Tante Reina came rushing into the entry, Adam began to catch the contagion of dread. In all his months with the Gypsy caravan, through the myriad of illnesses, accidents and deaths that the travelling people were subject to, he had never seen the old woman’s expression so dire.

  “Walk with her Lord Damien, help bind her to this earth until the cock’s crow or else her soul may go seeking for the Light again,” Tante Reina demanded. “Talk to her, Gajo. Pray, if there are any gods that you believe in, pray that this night is soon ended.”

  The mastiff gave a series of sharp yips and Thorpe yowled in protest, unsheathing his claws.

  “This is no time for recriminations,” Damien said, pulling Miranda’s arm about his shoulder as he addressed his dog. “I doubt you could have done better, Angel. Thorpe did all that he could.”

  “Her eyes are closing,” Adam said as he draped Miranda’s other arm around his neck. “Can you not use a spell or charm or some such?”

  “I would not have guessed you to be a believer in the power of magic,” Damien said, looking at Adam curiously.

  “I am not,” Adam told him, as they urged Miranda forward. “However, I do place a certain faith in the power of the mind. More than once I have witnessed remarkable feats accomplished with nothing more than strength of will. Your sister obviously places great store in this magical philosophy.”

  “And therefore, you regard her danger as real,” Damien observed, regarding him with a measure of new-found respect.

  “Damien?” Miranda’s eyes snapped open momentarily. “How . . . how . . .did you come?”

  “Mama’s summons, of course, garbled though it was,” her brother said. “And I was about to go up and see her. My coat is yet on my back, as you may note. Then you walked in, trouble on two feet as always, my hellion sister.”

  “As if you and your hound are not a pair of imps infernal,” Miranda whispered as they started across the marble floor. “I saw the Light, Damien; it was beautiful beyond imagination.”

  “Your magic has quickened, ‘Randa?” Damien asked, joy in his words. “I vow, Mama will be overcome with delight.”

  Miranda shook her head weakly. “I am no . . . no . . . more a witch than I was this morning. In fact, less; for when I woke today, there was s . . s . .still that small hope, that somewhere hidden deep, was that tiny s. . . . spark of enchantment. That was why . . . why . . . I willed myself to go with Lord Pelton’s ghost.”

  “A reckless deed, ‘Randa,” Damien said, halting in his tracks, his countenance contorting with horror, “to attempt a journey with a spirit when you have no certain means of return is much the same as suicide.”

  “Do not scold, Damien, I had . . . had . . .to know,”
she murmured, forcing her tongue to form words when her mind was demanding rest and a return to the glory of the Light. “All my life, I have been waiting, every day waking with the secret fantasy that perhaps I would be whole when the sun set, to be . . . to be . . . like Mama, like you.”

  Adam heard the ache in her words and was about to tell her how nonsensical her notions were, but she began to speak again.

  “There are any . . . any . . . number of stories in the chronicles,” Miranda informed them. “I told you, Adam, about spirits similar to Pelton’s. He had un . . . unfinished business you see, and was merely waiting for an opportunity to visit his lady.” She gave a bark of unhappy laughter. “Even a scoundrel like . . . like. . . Barone could have raised him, had there been but an ounce of sympathy in his invocation. When I felt Pelton’s spirit, I knew that this might very well be the only . . . only chance that I had. When he crossed the void, I attached myself to . . . to him in the hope that he could take me to the Light . . . the Light.”

  The pupils of her eyes narrowed to pinpoints. Damien halted and shook her shoulders. “Speak, girl, speak if you would stay with those who love you.”

  “M . . . many a mage or witch has bonded with a spirit thusly,” Miranda continued, tripping over the syllables like a drunkard with three sheets to the wind. “And in that journey to the r . . . r. . . realm of souls has come back with r . . . renewed power. Even m . . . mortals, have hung near death and c . . . caught glimpses of the Light. If there was some hidden m. . . magic within me, the Light would surely have revealed it.”

  “And most of those soul-travelers have never returned to tell the tale of their seeking.” Damien said, pain in his expression “Were you so eager to find your doom, sister mine, that you were willing to risk all?”

  “I could do worse than to end my existence bemused by glory,” she shrugged feebly. “How can you bear to leave it, Damien, when the bliss is upon you and you can see to the edge of Eternity?”